Beatles sobriquet / WED 9-17-25 / Ditto, in footnotes / Like some short tennis matches / Sorcerous elder of folklore / Anime style involving giant robots / Rocksteady precursor / Vodka cocktails with orange liqueur and lime juice / State trees of North Dakota / Brand whose name is derived from the French phrase "sans caféine" / "Shreds," in winter sports lingo

Constructor: Jackson Matz

Relative difficulty: Medium

THEME: "24-KARAT MAGIC" (43A: Grammy-winning Bruno Mars album of 2016 ... or a hint to an unusual feature of this puzzle's answer grid) — there are 24 "K"s in the grid (not sure why that's "magic")  

Theme answers:

• 43D: Like some short tennis matches (2-SET)
• 26D: Beatles sobriquet (FAB 4)
• anything with a "K"?

Word of the Day: MECHA (8D: Anime style involving giant robots) —

In science fiction, mecha (Japanese: メカ, Hepburn: meka) or mechs are giant robots or machines, typically depicted as piloted, humanoid walking vehicles. The term was first used in Japanese after shortening the English loanword 'mechanism' (メカニズム, mekanizumu) or 'mechanical' (メカニカル, mekanikaru), but the meaning in Japanese is more inclusive, and 'robot' (ロボット, robotto) or 'giant robot' is the narrower term.

Real mechs vary greatly in size and shape, but are distinguished from vehicles by their biomorphic appearance, and are often much larger than human beings. Different subgenres exist, with varying connotations of realism. The concept of Super Robot and Real Robot are two such examples found in Japanese anime and manga.

Real-world piloted robots or non-robots robotic platforms, existing or planned, may also be called "mechs". In Japanese, "mechs" may refer to mobile machinery or vehicles (not including aircraft, cars, motorcycles and HGV) in general, piloted or otherwise. (wikipedia)

• • •

LOL I undervalued Bruno Mars's "magic" by a full 10K. I took one look at the first cross, 43D: Like some short tennis matches and wrote in "1-SET." Two-set matches are so common in women's tennis that it never occurred to me to think of them as "short." I figured the puzzle was using "short" to mean "shorter than professional matches," like maybe you just decided to play a quick "match" at the club or something. You can see here that ONESET has appeared in the NYTXW a bunch in the past, and that the cluing is roughly equivalent to today's clue:

"14-KARAT" is a common enough purity measurement, and since I definitely was not paying attention to Bruno Mars albums 9 years ago ... ta da!? Failure! When I tell you I did not enjoy this puzzle much at all, please understand it has nothing to do with my error. I was wincing at the bad fill *way* before that—pretty much from the jump. I was like ten answers in when I first thought "oof, why is the fill so bad?" Actually, I was probably only three answers in: No regular-old mid-week puzzle should have LEOI as an answer unless the constructor is really desperate *and* the rest of the grid is pretty much spotless. It's the worst kind of crosswordese, and I would call it "lazy" in most cases, but today, after finishing the puzzle, at least I know why it was here, and why all the subpar / odd / unpleasant fill is here: so that we can get the full complement of 24 "K"s into the grid. Was it worth it? Not for me. KNOCK KNOCK and KNICK KNACK just aren't that interesting, and LEOI ATAD ACK IDEM HAH AGER EBOOK KERRI ARG DASANIS (plural!), ACTI EIEIO ECIG ... none of that was enjoyable. I love the kookiness of the letter "K" but ... not this much. 

[Bizarrely, LEOI seems to have gotten more popular in the Shortz Era; would not have guessed that]

Lotta names today, though only a small handful gave me trouble. I know the name KEKE Palmer because I saw and loved Nope, but I definitely needed to get the first two letters from crosses in order to remember the name. As for Jo KOY, nope (!), nothing. I checked and rechecked those crosses to make sure it couldn't be anything else. He seems to be most famous for bombing spectacularly as the host of the Golden Globe awards in 2024. I can't believe the Golden Globes are even still a thing. If you go to that awards show, I say you get what you deserve. Anyway, KOY is a debut, no surprise. All the other names in the puzzle are pretty big (RIHANNA, KARATE KID, LENA Dunham, Brooks & DUNN, etc.), although KERRI Strug is increasingly bygone. Did you know that the only other KERRI to appear in the NYTXW is also an Olympic gold medalist??! KERRI Walsh Jennings is an Olympic beach volleyball player (three golds and a bronze).

No real struggle points today. Always unsure about the exact spelling of "kamikaze" so I left the second and third vowels blank and let the crosses do the work (27A: Vodka cocktails with orange liqueur and lime juice). Also never sure of the last letter on KRONA (71A: Swedish coin), because the Norwegian coin is, in fact, a KRONE, so I waited for the cross there as well. Went looking for a sobriquet (i.e. nickname) for *individual* Beatles before I realized it was going to be a "sobriquet" for the whole band (FAB 4). Pretty sure I had AGAR before AGER. Both answers are regrettable crosswordese, but AGAR is a thickener, not a ripening agent. Really enjoyed seeing AKIRA Kurosawa, as he's among the greatest directors of all time, up there with Hitchcock and Varda and Kurosawa's own countryman, OZU, who (as I apparently do not tire of pointing out) has somehow still never appeared in the NYTXW. It's weird to me that the puzzle has used UZO (Aduba) nine times, but has never once used the legendary Japanese director whose name is just the same letters in reverse.

What else?:

• 1A: State trees of North Dakota (ELMS) — no idea. I thought "probably ELMS" because, well, four letters, trees ... why not? But then I thought of OAKS, and YEWS, and the fact that I know nothing about the flora of North Dakota, so I waited for crosses to help me out. Sadly, the first cross was no help, as I wanted the Club to be SAMS Club (1D: ___ Club).
• 21A: Brand whose name is derived from the French phrase "sans caféine" (SANKA) — most facts that are billed as "fun facts" are not in fact "fun," but this one is. Do people under 45 even know what SANKA is? Is it still around? I feel like it was a staple of 1970s-80s cupboards, but that's probably just because that's when I was watching a lot of TV and saw the ad campaigns.

[alternate clue for 2-Down: [Former 21-Down pitchwoman Horne]]

• 12D: Sorcerous elder of folklore (CRONE) — wow, "sorcerous," You don't see that word very often. This is its first use in a NYTXW clue. (Never appeared as an answer, unsurprisingly)
• 44D: Contrite answer to "Who put the empty ice cream carton back in the freezer?" ("I DID") — I'll have you know that I was not contrite.
• 58D: Outie's counterpart (INNIE) — Severance clue when!?!

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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A shopper, not a buyer, informally / TUE 9-16-25 / Fashion house named for its founder, Signor Garavani / Miss Havisham's ward in "Great Expectations" / Licorice-flavored spice / Cable inits. for cinephiles / High-status American Express offering / Motion of receding waves

Constructor: Jonathan Daly

Relative difficulty: Easy

THEME: ALL ABOARD (63A: Train conductor's cry ... or a hint to each word in the answers to the starred clues) — each part of the two-part theme answers is a type of "board" (and can precede "board" in a familiar phrase):

Theme answers:

• BLACK CARD (17A: *High-status American Express offering)
• KEY-CUTTING (25A: *Task for a locksmith)
• BACKWASH (31A: *Motion of receding waves)
• SEA FLOOR (45A: *Bottom of the ocean)
• HEADCHEESE (52A: *Product of meat scraps that, despite its name, is dairy-free)

Word of the Day: TMC (27D: Cable inits. for cinephiles) —

The Movie Channel (often abbreviated as TMC) is an American premium television network owned by Showtime Networks, a division of Paramount Skydance Corporation operated through its Paramount Media Networks division. Not including CBS, it is the oldest network owned by Paramount. The Movie Channel's programming mainly features first-run theatrically released and independently produced motion pictures, and during promotional breaks between films, special behind-the-scenes features and movie trivia. Originally operated and sold as a standalone service (launching as Star Channel in April 1973), at present, The Movie Channel is receivable to pay television subscribers primarily as part of the multiplex tier of parent network Showtime. The channel, along with its parent network Showtime and sister network Flix, is headquartered at Paramount Plaza on the northern end of New York City's Broadway district. (wikipedia)

• • •

Wow, I guess we're really bringing this theme type back. It's been just one week since the last time we've seen a "both-words"-type puzzle. Last week I said that it was a type of theme you used to see from time to time, but that it seemed to have fallen out of fashion, or wasn't being used as much. I was surprised to see the theme type last week. I'm even more surprised to see it again this week. I figured it would drift back to the bottom of the theme-type box, but I guess it's endlessly renewable, in theory, so why not. I'm not usually a huge fan of these puzzle types unless the resulting themers are actually cool phrases *and* there's a decent revealer. Today's revealer does alright—a repurposed train phrase? That's pretty clever. On a literal level, grammatically, it's a teeny bit wonky (all the answer parts are boards, plural; each is A BOARD), but it's close enough for crosswords (i.e. you gotta give a revealer some wackiness slack, or wackyslack, as I'm now, as of this second, calling it). And the themers themselves are all solid phrases. Nothing iffy foisted upon us solely because it fits the theme. But then, on the other other hand, two of those answers are BACKWASH and HEADCHEESE, which are about as unappetizing a pair of themers as you're going to find. If I may paraphrase completely rewrite the old Folgers commercial: "The worst part of waking up / Is HEADCHEESE (and/or BACKWASH) in your puzz!" 

I know that they've got BACKWASH clued as some kind of wave phenomenon here, but come on, BACKWASH is the return of drink+saliva into a cup or can. BACKWASH is why you don't want to drink someone else's drink when the drink's almost gone. Mostly BACKWASH by then. I've never heard BACKWASH used in reference to wave motion. Nice try, puzzle, but this answer remains inherently gross. But vivid. All the themers were vivid, and that's probably what counts most in an easy early-week puzzle. I do wish the rest of the grid had been at least a little bit interesting. Felt like I was running into repeaters way too often. ENYA LEIA KIEAS EWE OUI UNA ONO POR ETTA SERTA ... and EKING! The whole EKE family is very prominent in CrossWorld, but EKING is the patriarch. The king, really. If you thought you never saw "EKE" anywhere but crosswords, true, but especially true of EKING, who will roam the halls of crosswords for eternity despite not having seen or heard in regular conversation, outside a crossword grid, since 1931. After the inevitable A.I. takeover, all countries will be run by E-KINGs. Can't wait.

ANISESEED has to be the weakest 9 there is (32D: Licorice-flavored spice). All 1-pt Scrabble tiles. Just blah. Waste of a nice big answer. I want to like LOOKIE-LOO, but I am not sure about the spelling there (11D: A shopper, not a buyer, informally). I would've spelled it LOOKY-LOO. To be clear, I wouldn't use it at all unless I was being ironically whimsical, but if forced to spell it, I'd've gone "Y." Looks like different dictionaries make different choices. I think OED has it as "looky" but merriam-webster.com has it "lookie." Both seem reasonable. So that was the one longer non-theme answer I enjoyed. After the unsavoriness of BACKWASH and HEADCHEESE, you'd think the puzzle would steer clear of any other answers with a high ick factor, but then—emanating straight out of HEADCHEESE—comes the SEWAGE. Yeah, that tracks with the E-COLI I saw earlier in the grid. 

More more more:

• 15A: ___ Dictionary (crowdsourced online reference) (URBAN) — not very useful because so often illiterate, but it can be entertaining if you're trying to find out about slang terms and what the majority of people think they mean. Someone once sent me an URBAN Dictionary mug with the term "Natick" on it. The definition could probably be better written, but I still love it.

• 38A: Miss Havisham's ward in "Great Expectations" (ESTELLA) — like ANISESEED, another long name filled with all boring letters. ESTELLA ANISESEED is what you would call a fictional character who was really into crosswords. 
• 44D: Chicago airport code (ORD) / 55D: Chicago airport (O'HARE) — what are we doing here? Besides clogging the grid with even more crosswordese. Unless you do some kind of clever crossreference, this is just a sad dupe.
• 27D: Cable inits. for cinephiles (TMC) — As I will apparently never tire of saying, "cinephiles" watch TCM (not TMC). I got so tired of seeing TMC clued as a station for "cinephiles" that I finally just looked it up to see exactly what it was (see "Word of the Day," above). Far as I can tell, it's one of countless movie options in your premium cable package. No idea what makes it distinct from any other. It's not a station "for cinephiles." It's a station for people who are scanning the infinite list of channels and finally just get bored and settle for that just-OK movie that was really popular once. You know ... that one. Actually, The Firm is on TMC right now. Yes, that seems right. (Actually, Alan J. Pakula's The Parallax View (a '70s paranoia thriller starring Warren Beatty) is on at 9:35am EDT, Hitchcock's To Catch a Thief at 1pm, and Sofia Coppola's The Virgin Suicides at 2:50—those are great movies. TCM-worthy, for sure)

That's all. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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